Miracle of Saint Francis Xavier

The Miracle of Saint Francis Xavier was commissioned in 1641 as an altarpiece for the Jesuit novitiate in Paris, marking one of Poussin's most overtly theatrical public works. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary to Asia, was canonized in 1622, and the Jesuits actively promoted his image through large-scale altarpieces across Europe. Poussin, who generally preferred cabinet-sized works for private collectors, here produced an unusually large and dramatic composition that rivals his Roman contemporaries in ambition if not in exuberance.

Poussin divides the canvas into a heavenly upper zone, where Xavier intercedes in prayer, and a lower zone of desperate supplicants around a resurrected figure. The diagonal thrust from the miracle below to the saint above gives the large format a sense of dynamic energy.